The Road to El Dorado
by Madison Dyann
Summary: Upon running from the Spanish guards Amanda ends up on a ship headed for the new world. She is then discovered and thrown into the brig with two men. This meeting will change her life forever.
1. Avoidance

Damn it! Damn it! Amanda thought as she took a sharp left, trying to avoid running into the people in the middle of the street. Her bare feet pounded against the unevenly paved street. She turned right, not thinking, and she almost ran into an old lady. The road before her was that of an ally way. At the every end was a brick wall. Damn it all to hell!. But Amanda did not slow down, instead she forced her legs to move faster. Once she was too close to stop from running into the wall, she jumped. She was able to grab the edge of the wall and pull herself over. She landed hard on her side. Grasping for air, Amanda slowly got to her feet. She could her hear the guards turn around and head the other, intending to cut her off from another way. All this over a single apple. It must be a slow day for them.

Amanda continued to run around the crowd and uneven streets for another twenty minutes, before she decided to find some place to hide. She happened to stop next to the harbor. There was a number of ships being loaded or unloaded. She then turned to the street behind her. Turning in circles, scanning the dense crowd, was three Spanish guards dressed in their reflective armor. One of them looked Amanda dead in the eyes. She didn't take time to see if the others saw her, for she ran towards a huge ship that was being loaded and prepared for departure. She ran up the cross walk and took refuge in the first room she saw, which happened to be full of mops and other cleaning supplies. Moving a few things around, Amanda sat down and tried to hide herself as best as possible. When she was sure she wouldn't be discovered, she pulled a small red apple out of the pocket of her slightly worn trousers.

When she was done eating as much of the apple as possible she threw it to the other side of the closet. Exhaustion creep into Amanda's limbs, mainly her legs and feet. Her dark red hair stuck to her sweat covered face. She had difficultly keeping her hazel eyes open. Giving in to the sleepless, Amanda made her self comfortable and quickly fell asleep.


	2. Seven!

"Seven!" Tulio yelled as he threw his red and white dice. They bounced a couple of times before landing on a five and a two. "Yes, partner!" Tulio high fived Miguel, picked up his dice and started dancing and singing joyfully next to Miguel, who played his guitar. "Tons of gold for me! And tons of gold for me! And tons of gold for we!"

"Hey!" Tulio and Miguel instantly stopped dancing when the man they were play against yelled. He was a big man, more than twice the size of Tulio and Miguel put together. He had a gold ear ring in one ear and he was in serious need of a bath. "One more roll!" The big guy demanded.

"Uh, guys, you're broke! You got nothin to bet with." Mocked Tuilo. Tulio was tall, thin and young. His long black hair was pulled back and he had a small goatee on his chin. Miguel was about the same size as Tulio, only a little shorter and had boarder shoulders. His sandy blond hair reached his shoulders.

"Oh, yea? I got this." The man pulled an old yellow map out of his jacket pocket.

"A map? Psh, a map." Tulio said, disappointed.

"A map!" Miguel said enthusiastically.

"A map of the wonders of the new world." The man said proudly.

"Wow. Let's have a look." Miguel pulled an unwilling Tulio closer as he inspected the map. On the map was many oddly draw colorful pictures. Miguel than grabbed the map out if the man's hands and continued to turn every other way. "Tulio." Miguel shoved his face into the map.

"Excuse us for one moment." Tulio said indifferently.

"Tulio, look." He patted the map. "El Dorado. The city of gold. This could be our destiny, our fate."

"Miguel. If I believed in fate I wouldn't be playing with loaded dice." Tulio whispered. "Not with the face." Miguel made a very sad and begging face and began to whimpered like a dog. "No, no, no, no. No. No. No."

"I said one more roll." The man pulled the map out of Miguel's grip. "My map against your cash."

Miguel's smile never left his face as he stared at Tulio. Giving in Tulio said, "Alright, pee wee. Your on." He then began to shake his dice.

"Not with those. This time we use my dice." The man pulled out simple white and black dice. "Got a problem with that?"

"Err...no." Tulio shoved his dice in his pocket but not before turning to Miguel and mouthing If we lose I will kill you . He took the man's worn dice and began to shake them. "Come one baby. Papa need that crappy map." He said under his breath. Miguel was playing his guitar every obnoxiously so Tulio said "Stop that." He shook the dice one last time and then he let them go, "Show me seven!" The dice bounced around on the paved for what seemed like forever to Miguel and Tulio. The first one landed on a three while the other continued to spin. Then it finally landed on a four. Tulio removed his hands from over his face, "Seven. Seven!"

"Alright!" Miguel ran over and picked up the map off of the pile of gold.

Laughing Tulio bended over and starting picking up the gold. "Well it was nice doing business with you." Then his dice rolled out of his jacket pocket. They landed on seven. The man slammed the ground, the dice remained on seven. He did it again, seven.

"I knew it," Tulio slowly picked up his dice, "Your dice are loaded!" The man yelled.

Tulio's face became full of anger and betrayal right on cue. "You gave me loaded dice." He pointed his finger at Miguel, He was walking away when in ran into someone. Looking up it was a Spanish guard in full armor. "He gave me loaded dice!" His voice was full of pain and hurt. "Guard, arrest him."

"You dare impede my honor." Miguel said with anger in his voice. "He was the one who was cheating." He said, matter of fact. "Arrest him. He's one that tricked these sailor and stole their money." He pushed Tulio.

"Oh, so now I'm the thief?"

"Yes."

"Well, take I look in the mirror pal." Tulio pushed Miguel's face against the shiny armor.

"You better give their money back or I'll.......or I'll..," Miguel grabbed the guards sword. "On guard!"

"On guard yourself. I will give you the honor of a quick and painless death." He grabbed what he thought was a man's sword but it turned out to be a small dagger. "Not with that." He returned the knife and grabbed a real sword.

They danced around the circle of people watching their "duel." They would swing and jabbed their swords at each other but never really can close to hitting any body part.

"Any last words?" Tulio asked.

"I will cut you to ribbons, fool."

"Let your sword do the talking."

"I will. Take that."

They started moving upward, hopping on boxes.

"You fight like my sister." Mocked Miguel.

"I fought your sister. That's a compliment."

The climbed on to the roof of a building. Tulio slipped and fell on the shingles. "Not the face. Not the face." He whispered as Miguel started to attack him. Miguel easily disarmed Tulio. The crowd appulhened.

"Ladies and gentleman, we've decided that its a draw." Miguel threw the swords down and him and Tulio jumped off the building on the other side.


	3. Alright, Cuba!

"Congratulations. Very good." Miguel said facing the wall.

"That was good wasn't?" Tulio said proudly. A loud snort sounded from behind them. They turned to see a large black bull staring at them with small anger filled eyes. It snorted again and began pounding its hoof against the dirt.

"I think we should've kept the swords." Miguel backed up the wall.

"Yea." Tulio said quietly, too afraid to move. "I've got a plan."

"Yea? What is it?"

"Well, uh. You..pet him..."

"Yea.."

"And....I'll.....RUN!" With that last word Tulio got up, Miguel right behind him, jumped over the pin and continued running through the streets. The bull broke down the face and chased after them. Half up the street was the crowd of people that had just ran from. Tulio took a sharped left to get away from both the anger black bull and the hostile group of people. Miguel followed closely behind him. Instead of chasing the crowd, the bull continued to follow Tulio and Miguel. The run up stairs and down stairs. Then they decided to jump on top of a house. They ran to the other side, almost falling off. At the bottom, on the street was two empty barrels with lids off.

"I bet we can make that." Miguel said quickly. The guard we climbing up on the house as well. Seeing no other option Tulio gave in.

"Two pesos says we can't." They jump, landing perfectly into the barrels.

"You lose." So Tulio flipped him two gold coins and then they placed the lids onto the barrels. Unknown to them, the two barrels were then lifted on to a ship. "What's going on?" Miguel said loud enough for Tulio to hear.

"We're both in barrels. That's the extent of my knowledge." Two crew members then rolled the barrels to a stop on the deck and them placed a heavy chest on top of them. "Miguel, we gotta move fast. On three we jump and head for the dock."

"Good. Good. Okay. Excellent. One, two, three." They both tried to remove their lids but they wouldn't move. They tried many times but their lids still wouldn't move. They finally gave up.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Amanda woke with a start. She could hear voices coming from outside. They were really loud. Curious, Armada risked a peek though the closet door. It was now night time. The moon shown high above the ship. The voices were coming from the crew mates. Most of them were standing around talking to each other. The combination of voices made it very loud on the deck. She then watched two men remove a large chedt from the top of two barrels. A second later, the tops fell off and out popped two men. Their faces showed that they weren't expecting what they saw. All the crew turned in surprise. One man moved into Amanda's line of sight. Anxious to see what was happening, she carelessly poked her head and most of her upper torso out of the door way. "Excuse us. You order the...uh...pickles?" Tulio said softly. They started to lower themselves back into the barrels as the crew moved towards them. Each of them was pulled from the barrels and thrown on to the deck.

Now Amanda had most of her body out of the doorway, which made it easy for a man to see her. Without speaking, he pulled her out of the closet, and threw her onto the ground next to the two men. She actually landed on top of Tulio. "Sorry." Was all Amanda said as she rolled herself off of him. She then pushed her self behind the two men as the captain approached. He was a large man with a scruffy beard and he was dressed in full battle armor.

"Cortes!" Miguel said fearfully.

"My crew was as carefully chosen as the disciples of Christ. And I will not tolerate stole aways. When we put into Cuba to resupply, who we be enslaved on the sugar plantations for the rest of your miserable lives. To the brig." Cortes sounded like he gave this speech every day.

"Alright, Cuba!" Miguel said happily.

Amanda, Tulio and Miguel were then roughly taken over to a door leading below deck and thrown in there. One of the crew members shut the door and locked it.


	4. Back To Spain?

The brig was nothing more than an empty room right below the deck. Amanda examined her knee where it hurt from being dragged and thrown into people. "Are you alright?" Tulio asked when he saw her checking her knee.

"Yea, I'm fine. How are you?" Amanda said sarcastically.

"Prefect. What's you name?" Tulio asked, not catching the sarcasm in Amanda's soft voice.

"Amanda. And you two are?"

"Miguel."

"Tulio." Amanda shook each one's hand.

"Miguel, Tulio. If you don't mind, I'm going to sleep." Again with the light sarcasm. Amanda moved into a corner, away from the moon light that shown in though the bars on the door, and fell asleep. Tulio and Miguel exchanged smiles before they moved to separate areas to sleep.

The next morning, Miguel awoke when an apple fell on his head. Tulio was banging his head against a pillar of wood, trying to think of an escape plan and Amanda watched quietly for the fact of have nothing better to do. "So..mm mm... how's the escape plan coming?" Miguel asked Amanda as he walked over and sat by her.

"He's been doing that for the past hour." Amanda never took her eyes off of Tulio. He finally stopped.

"Alright. Alright, wait. I'm getting something...." He never finished for he went back to banging his head against the pillar.

"Or not." Amanda said quietly. After a few more hits, Tulio moved away from the pillar and over to Miguel and Amanda.

"Okay. Here's the plan. In the dead of night, we grab so supplies, we hijack one of those long boats, and we row back to Spain like these no manana." Tulio used a cup as the boat to show them the "plan."

"Back to Spain, yea?" Miguel said.

"Yea." Tulio said lazily.

"In a row boat?" Amanda said slowly, not sure if she heard correctly.

"You got it."

"Great. That's your plan is it?" Miguel questioned.

"That's pretty much it."

"Well, that's all great and all, but how are we supposed to get on deck?" Amanda asked. Out of all the people, I get stuck with these idiots. Amanda thought.

"In the dead of night, we grab so supplies, we hijack one of those long boats,-"

"Ah, great!" Amanda said angrily.

"Okay. What's your idea, smart guy?" Tulio yelled in Amanda's face.

"Don't ask me. Your the ones with the 'plans'." Cortes horse snorted loudly on deck.

"Wait, I have an idea." Miguel said standing up.

"That scares me." Amanda said honestly.

"Me too." Tulio agreed.


	5. Holy Ship!

"Come on give me a boost." Miguel said looking up at the door. Amanda and Tulio exchanged frighten looks before Tulio allowed Miguel to climb on to his shoulders. Miguel put one of his hands holding the apple though one of the holes in the door. "Altivo. Over here, Altivo. You want the apple. Come and get it." Cortez's white horse, Altivo, walked over slowly. "But you have to do a trick for me first. All you have to do is find a pry bar. A long piece of iron with a hooky thing on the end."

"Oh, God." Amanda said when Miguel finished describing a pry bar to a horse.

"Miguel, you're talking to a horse." Tulio said, grasping to keep Miguel up.

"That's right, Altivo. The pry bar." Miguel ignored Tulio and Amanda.

"Yes, find the pry bar. He can't understand pry bar. He's a dumb horse. There's no way-" A small sliver object fell to the floor from the deck above.

"Oh." Was all Amanda said as she picked up the ring of keys.

"Well....its not a pry bar." Tulio said.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

That night, Tulio lifted Miguel up once more to unlock and open the door. Once he was on deck, Tulio lift Amanda up so she could climb up. She felt slightly uncomfortable with Tulio touching her so much. Miguel then help Tulio out of the brig, which took a bit longer because there was no one to lift him up. Once all of them where on deck they quickly grab some supplies and loaded it into a boat. Altivo walked up behind Miguel and hit in the back. Turning around he said, "Altivo, thank you old boy. Listen, if could ever return the favor-" Altivo started to smell Miguel's shirt.

"For Christ sake, he's a ruthless war horse, not a poodle. Come on." Tulio said from inside the boat which was ready to be lowered down into the ocean. Miguel climbed into the boat next to Amanda. Altivo whimpered loudly.

"Shh, shh. Quiet please." Miguel said,

"What's wrong with him?" Amanda asked quietly.

"Oh, he wants his apple." Miguel pulled the red apple out of his shirt.

"Give it to him before he wakes up the whole ship." Miguel handed the apple to Tulio. "Fetch." The apple went soaring threw the air and over the railing of the ship. Turning his head away, Tulio continued to lower the boat. A few seconds later, the apple into the ocean. Following close by was Altivo.

"O, great." Amanda said in disbelief. Altivo fell into the ocean with a huge splash.

"Altivo!" Miguel dived into the ocean after the horse.

"Miguel, no." Amanda said as she tried to grab the rope before the boat free fell into the ocean. She was too the boat was in the water, Tulio rowed it over to Miguel, who had a hold of Altivo's reins.

"Have you lost your mind?" Tulio said. The boat started to rock violently. Tulio and Amanda turned around to see the front of the ship a foot away from them. "Holy ship!" The boat flipped over, sending Tulio, Amanda and the supplies into the ocean.


	6. Regrets

The ocean water was warmer than Amanda expected, but that didn't take away the fact that she couldn't breathe. She swam upwards towards where she saw Tulio swimming. Her head broke the surface in the overturned row boat. Already in the boat was Tulio, Miguel and Altivo the horse. Altivo was panicking. Amanda had to dodged his hoofs a couple of time to keep from getting hit. "Loop the rope under the horse." Tulio said, dodging Altivo's hoofs too.

"Right." Miguel grab the rope that was connected too one side of the boat, swam under the horse and over to the other side of the boat. Following Miguel, Tulio and Amanda got out from under the boat and climbed on top of it. Grabbing the rope Tulio told them what to do.

"On the count of three pull back on the rope."

"What?" Miguel yelled, not understanding the point of the directions.

"Three!" Another war ship was passing them, sending another huge wave. Together all three of them pulled back on the rope. As the boat flipped the right way up, the three of them fell back into the ocean. When Amanda broke the surface again she saw the boat and Altivo sitting comfortably in it. Tulio helped her and Miguel into the boat. All of them were breathing heavily. "Did any of the supplies make it?" Tulio asked after a minute.

"Well, yes and no." Amanda answered when she saw Altivo eating the food out of the water soaked boxes.

"Ooh,great!"

"Tulio, look on the positive side. At least thing can't get any-" A crack of thunder sounded right before it started pouring rain.

'Excuse me. Were you going to say 'worse'? Tulio asked turning to Miguel.

"No."

"No?"

"No."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely." It was still raining when Amanda fell asleep. It wasn't a very pleasant sleep. She had many short dreams that she was drowning, but Amanda wasn't sure if they were dreams or memories from the past days events. When she woke up, the sky was clear and the sun bright. Tulio and Miguel were rowing the boat. That night it rained again. After that Amanda lost track of how many days it had been since she had left Spain. After a while, they ran out of food. Amanda wasn't sure if it was the hot sun or the lack of food and water that made so extremely tired. She was lending against the edge of the boat with her eyes close when she heard Tulio and Miguel talking.

"Tulio, did you ever imagine it would end like this?" Miguel said quietly.

"The horse and the girl are a surprise." Tulio said not so quietly.

'Any regrets?"

"Besides dying? Yea. I never had enough gold." Amanda rolled her eyes at his comment.

"My regret is, besides dying, that our greatest adventure is over before it even began and no one would even remember us."

"Well, if it's any consolation, Miguel, you made my life an adventure." By the tone of his voice, it sounded like he was crying.

"And if it's any consolation, Tulio, you made my life rich." Now both of them were crying. A few seconds later, Amanda felt the boat slow and them stop. She opened her eyes and sat up.

"Land!" All three of them yelled together. Tulio, Miguel and Altivo hopped out of the boat, but Amanda accidentally tripped on the edge of the boat and fell face first into the sand. Amanda didn't care, nothing could ruin this moment. She got up like nothing happened. While she was dusting the sand off her clothes, she heard Tulio and Miguel screech. Looking up the beach, towards the jungle, she saw a pair skeletons. One skull had a machete still in it.

"All in favor of getting back in the say 'aye'." Tulio said quickly.

"Aye."

"Aye."

"Aye." So all of them headed back to the row boat, but Miguel was still looking around as he went. "Hey, Miguel. We could use a little help." Amanda yelled trying to get Altivo back in the boat.

"Miguel. Hello." Tulio and Amanda walked up behind Miguel, who was looking as something. Miguel turned around quickly.

"Tulio. We've done it."

"Done what?" Amanda asked confused.

"What is that? The map?"Tulio asked.

"It's all right here." Miguel said not answering anyone's questions,

"You still have the map?"

"The whistling rock. The stream."

"You kept the map but you couldn't grab a little more food?" Tulio yelled.

"Even the mountains. You said so yourself. It could be possible. And it is. It really is the map to El Dorado."

"You drank the sea water didn't you?" Tulio asked in all seriousness.

"Oh, come on!"

"I'm not coming on. I wouldn't step foot in the jungle for a million pesos." Tulio walked back with Amanda to the boat.

"How about a hundred million?" Miguel asked.


	7. The Trail We Blaze

Tulio stopped suddenly. He still had one foot off the ground about to take another step. Amanda, who wasn't paying attention, ran into him. "What?" Tulio said not noticing the fact that Amanda was now on the ground.

"I just thought that after all El Dorado is the city of gold." Miguel walked slowly back to the boat.

"What's your point?"

"Well you know. Dust, nuggets, bricks, a temple of gold where you can pull gold from the very walls. But if you don't want to go, so let's get back in the boat and row back to Spain. After all it work so well last time."

"Ooh, wait?" Tulio yelled. "Wait a minute, new plan. We find the city of gold, we take the gold, and then we row back to Spain."

"And buy Spain." Miguel said cheerfully.

"Woo, wait a minute, time out. You guys aren't serious, are you?" Miguel and Tulio just gave Amanda a blank stare. "You guys are going to go running into the jungle? We don't even know what all is in there." Amanda was awestruck.

"Yea, you coming?" Miguel asked lazily.

"Sure, what the hell." Amanda said without thinking. She refused to say to stay on the beach by herself.

"That's the spirit. We'll follow that trail." Miguel pulled the rusted sword out of one of the skulls.

"What trail?" Tulio and Amanda said together.

Miguel ran to the jungle and started cutting. "The trail that we blaze." The leaves fell down to realve a a solid piece of rock. "That trail that we blaze." Miguel pointed in a different direction.

Amanda started heading back towards the boat, intending on row away from the crazy men she was surrounded by. "Hey. Oh no you don't." Tulio grabbed Amanda's arm and turned her around. "You're not leaving me alone with him."

"Fine." Amanda, Tulio and Altivo followed Miguel into the jungle. Amanda was too absorbed in what bad things were going to happen to them that she didn't even notice Altivo attack Tulio.

"Your horse just bit me in the butt!"

They walked through the jungle, stopping every hour or so either because Tulio thought they were going the wrong or because Tulio had a thorn struck in his foot. They decided to not rest that night, for Miguel didn't want and Tulio felt unsafe sleeping in the jungle. So each of them took turns sleeping on the back of Altivo. It wasn't comfortable, riding on a horse trying to sleep. Once she had fallen asleep Amanda would wake up suddenly for fear of falling off. Every so often Miguel would fine a landmark that was on the map which usually ended in argument between Tuilo and on whether or not is was a landmark. After about a day and a half they started to hear water. They then walked into a clearing. In front of them was a huge waterfall. The sound of the water falling was almost deafening. But they couldn't the waterfall because there was a thick fog around it.


	8. Tourist

Amanda walked forward, ahead of the others. She couldn't see more than about six inches in front of her. Suddenly her head collide with something hard. Tulio, Miguel, and Altivo, who had been following close behind her, ran into the hidden object. Rubbing his head, Tulio looked down at the map. He then looked back up at the hard thing they had ran into. It was a giant flat rock. It was smooth cravings of a picture on. On the rock there appeared to be a long snake like animal and riding was two people. In the corner towards the bottom was another person who appeared to be giving something to the others. Tulio looked behind the giant rock and saw nothing. He then picked at the stone. "Miguel. Miguel. Hey Miguel, wake up. Wake up." Tulio shook Miguel who had gotten knocked out my the collision. Amanda also came around. "We're there."

"We found it?" Miguel perked up.

"Oh, yea. We found it."

"Fantastic," Miguel jumped. "Where is it? How far?"

"Right here."

"Where? Behind the rock?"

"Oh, no. This is it."

"But....Give me that." Miguel grabbed the map from Tulio's hands. "This can't be-"

"Apparently El Dorado is native for great big ROCK!" Amanda got up slowly, rubbing her head. She had a slight bump on the top of her head. "But you know what? I'm feeling generous, so you can have my share." Tulio then hopped on the back of Altivo.

"You don't think that Cortez could have gotten here before and-"

"And what? Taken all the really big rocks? The scoundrel!" Tulio said sarcastically. Amanda walked around the rock examining it. Something in the ground caught her attention. Something shiny.

"Tulio. We have to think about this. We come all this way and we've...."

"Get. On. The. Horse." Tulio said slowly and Miguel did so. Amanda started to dig the unknown object up. It appeared to be a golden ball. Amanda was surprised by the weight of.

"Uh..guys look at what I found." She said as she went back around the rock. But Tulio and Miguel's attention was on something behind Amanda. Curious, she turned around. Behind her, there was a group of men running towards then, surrounding them. They were dressed in animal skin and carried spears. Frighten Altivo reared about on his hind legs. Amanda fell to the ground to avoid being hit. The men looked at Amanda, lying on the ground holding the golden ball. She threw at Tulio. Their eyes followed the ball. Tulio threw it back, Amanda threw it again, Tulio threw. Then Tulio tried to speak but Amanda hit him in the head with the gold ball.

"Uh.....Hello. This your rock? Sorry we were just looking. We're um....tourist. Tourist. We, we lost our group. Yea, may we go now?" As if to answer Tulio's question a man, who appeared to be the leader of the group, pushed a spear in from of Tulio's face. "Spears." Tulio laughed nervously.


	9. El Dorado

The men herded Miguel, Tulio, Amanda and Altivo towards the waterfall. Amanda walked besides Tulio and Altivo. Tulio leaned towards her and whispered in her ear, "You just had to pick that thing up, didn't you? You couldn't have just left it there?" Tulio spoke quickly but this voice had little anger in it. Amanda felt that he was just looking for something to take his mind off of their current problem. Not wanting to argue Amanda just gave him a dirty look.

Amanda tried to stop once they were at the base of the waterfall but the men with spears pushed her forward. Water poured over her head, causing her red hair to cling to her face. On the over side of the water was a large cavern. Amanda could not see what was at the end of it. The men then but the four of them into a large row boat. While they traveled farther into the cave, Amanda ringed the water out her hair, allowing it to return to the curly state it was before.

They all sat in silence. A few piece of rock fell on Altivo's head which caused Amanda to suppress a laugh. She turned around when she noticed light at the end of the cave. The light blinded her as they exited the cave.

All their mouths fell open, even Altivo's. In front of them was many tall pyramid shaped buildings that appeared to be made of gold. The sun's rays reflected off of them causing the place to be brighter. Green plants grow on the edges of the river. In unison the three of them whispered, "El Dorado." The city seemed to go on forever. There were many people walking on streets that appeared to be paved with gold. All of then turned to watch the boat float by. The men took them to the largest pyramid that was placed in the center of the city.

The men with spears had them get out of the boat. Altivo practically forced Tulio and Miguel to climb on him. Amanda walked beside them. The people gathered around them, whispering to each other and staring. As they walked up to the steps of the pyramid, Tulio said to Miguel, "Well, it was nice working with you, partner."

"Tulio. I just want you to know that I'm sorry about that girl in Basuavo." Miguel whispered.

"What? Why you, f-" Tulio was suddenly cut off by a much louder voice.

"Behold! As the prophecies' foretold, the time of judgment is now!" The speaker was tall, muscular man with a receding hairline. The skin on his face looked as if it was pulled over a too big of a rock. He was standing on the first set of steps. A rather large man walked up next to him. The creepy man continued to talk, "Citizens. Did I not predict that the gods would come to us?" He walked down the steps as he spoke. Amanda risked a glance up to Tulio. Him and Miguel were both looking every confused.


	10. Gods

Once the man was down the steps he bowed in front of Altivo, "My lords, I am Tzekel-Kan. Your devoted high priest and speaker for the gods." Amanda moved closer to Altivo, trying to blend into the horse. Next to the high priest appeared a large with a much more kinder face than his neighbor.

"I'm an Chief Tailback. What names may we call you?" Amanda noticed that the two appeared to have only addressed Tulio and Miguel, not her.

"I am Miguel." Miguel said with a fake voice full of authority.

"And I am Tulio." Tulio said in the same voice. Miguel jumped off of Altivo, only to have his foot caught in the reins. Ignoring this mishap he said, "And we call ourselves Miguel and Tulio."

The priest's eyes then flashed to Amanda, who just looked at Miguel and Tulio. She could see Tulio's mind working on a explanation about her. "And this is Amanda," Tulio patted her on the back, "our.....secretary." Amanda just stared at him in disbelief, then she noticed everyone looking so she just gave a the best smile she could and stood behind Tulio and Miguel.

The high priest on a confused look on his face, which he quickly replaced when he said, " My lords, your arrival has been greatly anticipated."

"My lords, why now have you chosen to visit us?" The chief asked. Amanda noticed that the priest seemed to be very annoyed with the chief. "Enough! You do not question the gods." The priest said in exasperation.

"That's right. Don't not question us. Or we will have to unleash our awesome and terrible power. And you don't want that." Miguel said with his fake voice.

"Yes. We do." Tzekel-Kan said with much excitement.

Miguel's voice faltered."You do?"

"Of course we do. Visit your wrath upon this nonbeliever! Show us the truth of your divinity!" The priest said with the same amount of excitement.

"Divinity! One moment." Tulio said before he pulled Miguel back to talk to him. Amanda stood a few feet away, listening in on the conversation. "Miguel, you know that little voice people have...that tells them to quit when they're ahead? You don't have one!"

Miguel apologized. "Well, I'm sorry. I got carried away!"

"Way away." Tulio said.

"Maybe we should tell the truth and beg for mercy." Miguel said, scared.

"Are you nuts? We'd be butchered alive!" Tulio said. They started to argue as Tulio tried to create a plan. Neither Tulio or Miguel saw the volcano in the distance. It was starting to erupt. It continued until Tuilo yelled, "Stop!"


	11. Author's Note

*Author's Note*

Sorry I haven't updated. But I think I'm going go back and rewrite this. I'm not sure if I'm going to change anything important.....well, the name Amanda seems kind of random to me now so I'll be changing that. Sorry. :(

------Madison Dyann-------


End file.
